As an example of this type of image forming apparatus administration system, as disclosed in, for instance, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 257155/1990, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 259666/1990, and Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 196053/1991, there has been known a system in which an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine can be connected to an administrating device installed in a service center by utilizing a communication line such as a public line or the like.
This type of image forming apparatus administration system collects data as to how each of image forming apparatuses are used, and utilizes the data for controlling the apparatuses for maintenance of the image forming apparatus under centralized management of a plurality of image forming apparatuses each provided in a remote place by the administrating device (host machine) installed at one site. Contents on the data as to how the apparatuses are used include a number of copied sheets of paper, while contents of the maintenance include automatic call out to the administrating device according to self-diagnosis by the image forming apparatus and adjustment of each section of the image forming apparatus executed in response to access from the administrating device thereto.
Also, by making use of this system, a counter value (generally a number of copied sheets of paper) for charging the contracted maintenance fee for any image forming apparatus (copying machine), which is, conventionally, checked by a serviceman (service engineer) who visits customer sites or by a call, is read out.
Further, the serviceman makes a report to a service center from the customer sites when a maintenance work for the image forming apparatus is to be started, and also when the work is finished.
However, when the serviceman is to make a contact with a service center, when the serviceman starts a maintenance work and also when he finishes the work, at a customer site to inform the facts described above, the contact can not always be carried out smoothly because there are some inconvenient cases where a telephone unit at the costumer site can not be used, so that the serviceman has to go out for using a public telephone set, or even if the telephone set can be used, a supervisor in the service center does not happen to be at the site.
For this reason, the present invention was made in the light of the circumstances as described above, and it is an object of the present invention to provide an image forming apparatus administration system in which a serviceman at a costumer site can smoothly make a contact with a service center at any time before a maintenance work for the image forming apparatus is started and after the work is ended.